Christie slams Obama as 'preening' in Rand Paul country

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Kentucky Republicans on Saturday that President Barack Obama was "posing and preening" instead of working to resolve pressing issues facing the country.

"He is the most ill-prepared person to assume the presidency in my lifetime," Christie told some 600 Kentucky Republicans at a Lexington hotel. "This is a guy who literally is walking around in a dark room trying to find the light switch of leadership."

Christie was in Kentucky to deliver a pep talk to state GOP leaders. The state's presidential primary is Tuesday, though it will have no significant impact. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

In his remarks, Christie focused entirely on the general election, drawing a standing ovation for his biting remarks about Obama.

"He has sat in the Oval Office and cared more about posing and preening and making partisan politics the rule of the day in Washington D.C. than he's cared about progress," the New Jersey Republican, now in his third year in office, said of Obama.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who invited Christie to Kentucky, called him "the perfect conservative messenger to inspire and energize Kentuckians" to help defeat Obama this fall.

It's a sharper turn in the attacks that Christie has made about the president, whose interests have occasionally dovetailed with the president's, on policy points like education.

He is seen as a potential VP candidate for Romney, but not a likely one, given the potential for him to overshadow the presumptive nominee.